Like how Tableau is a great UI for grammar of graphics, Palantir is a great UI for ontological expert systems. Technically you could do everything without it but organizations and especially government typically don’t cultivate that level of expertise in their staff.

In my view expert systems typically failed because the organizations would degrade bureaucratically faster than any expert system could accommodate. With AI there isn’t a pre-requisite need for organizational expertise so the tooling will still work in largely dysfunctional orgs which is a property that did not previously exist. With the help of AI people who don’t understand ontologies can still successfully build one.

Separately it is my opinion that Palantir is a CIA cut-out for the Peter Thiel faction. So paying Palantir is like paying tribute to that particular faction. Similar to how other large military purchases are less about the military hardware and more of a client state subscription to ‘align interests’ such that the US is more likely to act in the donor countries interest.